1. Introduction
The Raman-based distributed fiber sensing exploits Raman-optics scattering effect along the sensing fiber to obtain the spatially distributed temperature profiles [
1]. The most common Raman-based distributed temperature sensor (Raman-based DTS) employs spontaneous Raman-optics effect through measurements of the Stokes and anti-Stokes backscattered components. The Raman-based DTS for distributed temperature monitoring has been a hot research topic throughout the years [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8]. It has been employed in a large variety of application areas due to the advantages of distributed measurement, such as fire monitoring [
5], power grid [
6], and gas pipeline [
7,
8] detection, etc.
A high-performance Raman-based DTS capable of measuring ambient temperature must be selected according to many different criteria, such as temperature accuracy [
2], sensing distance [
9], spatial resolution [
10], measurement time [
5], and temperature resolution [
11], etc. The temperature resolution is known as the smallest temperature range that the sensors can resolve. It is one of the important factors in the fields of industrial temperature monitoring [
7,
12,
13]. For example, in the pipeline leakage monitoring field, the sensors with a better temperature resolution can accurately detect the leakage position when the amount of leakage is small [
7]. The sensor can calculate the cable carrying capacity and cable current by using the temperature characters in the smart grid field [
12]. In order to achieve the above applications, all the temperature profiles are needed to be detected with a temperature resolution better than 1.00 °C. The current technical indicators of temperature resolution for Raman-based DTS cannot meet this requirement.
In Raman-based DTS, the intensity of the Raman backscattered component is about 60–70 dB weaker than the incident light [
3] leading to a poor signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which is the major limiting factor of the temperature resolution performance. For enhancing the temperature resolution performance, some novel demodulation schemes are proposed [
11,
12,
13,
14,
15,
16,
17,
18,
19,
20,
21]. For example, a loop measurement scheme using Stokes and anti-Stokes components is presented [
11,
14]. In this scheme, the temperature distribution with 100 k time-averaged traces has been measured and then normalized in two directions with a total measurement time of 40 s. The temperature resolution with 1.50 °C and 1.10 °C are achieved in the standard and anti-Stokes trace-based traces loop configuration, respectively. However, twice the length of the sensing fiber is required in this scheme. Furthermore, increasing the spontaneous Raman scattering threshold in the sensing fiber can also optimize the temperature resolution. A few mode fiber (FMF) Raman-based DTS system is proposed [
3]. The 4 mode and 2 mode FMF can respectively obtain the temperature resolution of about 7.0 °C and 6.0 °C, and these temperature signals are averaged 60 k times during 80 s. Moreover, some optical coding schemes based on either directly or externally modulated semiconductor lasers in MMFs and SMFs [
15,
16,
17] have been proposed. The cyclic coding scheme is enabling the use of high-power pulsed-laser technology to improve the SNR. It has achieved a temperature resolution of 3 °C over a range of 26 km in 30 s of measurement [
17]. In addition to the above-mentioned schemes, some novel denoising algorithms have been applied to the Raman-based DTS [
1,
18,
19,
20,
21]. These denoising methods can optimize the measurement performance by improving the SNR of the Raman signal extracted from the acquisition system. The wavelet denoising algorithm can achieve a distributed temperature measurement along 7 km long range with a temperature resolution of 1.60 °C [
19].
The above methods can effectively improve the temperature resolution performance, but its special optical mechanism makes the measurement time longer (even reaches up to 80 s), which cannot meet the requirement of real time distributed temperature monitoring. In the conventional Raman-based DTS, a Raman compensation component along the whole fiber-line is used to compensate the fiber attenuation for the extraction of the absolute temperature values in the measurement stage. This compensation component requires the entire sensing fiber to be placed in a constant temperature environment before measurement. If the sensing fiber or any device is replaced during the measurement stage, the sensor needs to be recalibrated, which makes the measurement process more complicated. Meanwhile, this Raman compensation component will bring a lot of additional optical interference noise, it will ultimately affect the temperature resolution performance.
In this research, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel dynamic difference attenuation recognition (DDAR) method which can effectively eliminate the optical interference noise and optimize the temperature resolution and the SNR. In this experiment, the distributed temperature measurement and theoretical analysis based on the dual-demodulation and self-demodulation principles are carried out by using the 17.0 km graded index multimode sensing fiber. The temperature resolutions are improved in the Raman-based schemes by using the DDAR method. The whole-fiber calibration process is omitted. Moreover, the temperature resolution performances under a large temperature measurement range are theoretically analyzed. The simulation results show that the temperature resolution performances for the DDP and SDP schemes present different characteristics with the change of the measured temperature. It provides a new solution to the temperature resolution improvement for a large temperature measurement range.
2. Experimental Setup and Results Based on DDP Scheme with DDAR
The Raman-based DTS employs spontaneous Raman-optics effect through detecting the Raman backscattered anti-Stokes and Stokes components [
17,
18,
19,
20,
21]. There are two types of temperature demodulation principles, dual demodulation principle [
22,
23,
24,
25] (DDP), and self-demodulation principle [
11,
14,
26] (SDP). The system based on the DDP scheme uses the intensity ratio of anti-Stokes over Stokes light for detecting the surrounding environmental temperature. The SDP scheme only uses the Raman anti-Stokes backscattered light to extract the temperature profiles. These two schemes are described in detail below.
2.1. The Experimental Setup and Results Based on DDP Scheme
Figure 1 displays the Raman-based DTS experimental setup based on DDP scheme. Among them, the DDP scheme includes of a pulsed laser, a Raman WDM, APD, amplifiers, DAC, personal computer, reference fiber and fiber under tests (FUTs). The device details are shown in
Table 1. In Raman-based DTS, when the pulsed laser enters the sensing fiber, the Raman scattering occurs at each point along the sensing fiber. The Raman-based DTS is based on the optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) principle to locate the temperature signal. When the temperature along the fiber increases, the intensity of the Raman scattered intensity at that point will increase. Therefore, the Raman anti-Stokes intensity is modulated by surrounding temperature. Finally, the DAC and personal computer performs the temperature demodulation by collecting the backward Raman scattered light. Moreover, a Raman-based DTS prototype based on the DDP scheme is also developed with the above experimental device.
The conventional temperature demodulation method (DDP scheme) [
27] is shown in the Equation (1).
In the whole-fiber calibration stage, theϕaco andϕsco are for the anti-Stokes and Stokes lights at the reference fiber. Theϕao andϕso are the anti-Stokes and Stokes lights at the sensing fiber.To andTco are the temperatures of the sensing fiber and reference fiber. In the measurement stage, theϕa andϕs are the lights of anti-Stokes and Stokes respectively. Theϕac andϕsc are the lights of anti-Stokes and Stokes at the reference fiber.Tc is for the temperature of the reference fiber. Theh is the Planck’s constant, is the Raman frequency shift,k is the Boltzmann constant,T is the absolute temperature.
The distributed temperature experiment based on DDP scheme is performed. Among them, the sensing fiber consists of four sections (FUT 1, FUT 2, FUT 3, and FUT 4). The temperatures of FUTs are all set at 40.00 °C, 50.00 °C, and 60.00 °C by the TCC. In addition, the rest of the sensing fiber is placed at room environment (the room temperature is about 28.00 °C). Then the temperature information along the 7.0 km fiber are detected according to Equation (1). The measurement results are shown in
Figure 2a–c. The
Figure 2d shows an enlarged part of the temperature measurement result. In this experiment, the temperature resolution distributions are obtained by calculating the temperature fluctuation range within a window of 50 m or the standard deviation of the measured temperature [
3,
11]. As shown in the
Figure 2a–c, the blue spot curves display for the temperature resolution along the 7 km sensing fiber (by calculating the temperature fluctuation range) with the temperature results averaged at 10 k times. Because of the SNR deteriorates with the increase of the sensing distance, the measurement result exhibits a worse temperature resolution at the end of fiber compared to the start position of the fiber. The experimental results show that the temperature resolution is 2.45 °C and 6.00 °C under a sensing distance of 1.0 km and 7.0 km, this lower temperature resolution performance limits the application of Raman-based DTS.
2.2. Temperature Demodulation Principle and Temperature Resolution Analysis
In the conventional demodulation method, the Raman-based DTS system needs two sections of Raman intensity signal for temperature extraction. The conventional demodulation schematic diagram is shown in the
Figure 3. Among them, the part of the Raman intensity comes from the measurement stage, and the other part comes from the whole-fiber calibration stage before the measurement. This conventional demodulation mechanism requires the system to place all the sensing fibers under a constant temperature condition for calibration before measurement. Most importantly, the extracted Raman signal in the whole-fiber calibration stage is about 30 dB smaller than the Rayleigh scattering signal. The SNR of the Raman scattering signal collected by the DAC in the whole-fiber calibration stage is weak. Among them, a large of noise are doped into the Stokes-one and anti-Stokes-one channels at the whole-fiber calibration stage. Thence, when the conventional demodulation method uses this method with weak SNR to extract the temperature information, the system will inevitably cause a low temperature resolution performance. As shown in the Equation (1), in the conventional DDP scheme, two sections of the intensity ratio of Raman demodulation signal (anti-Stokes over Stokes light,
ϕa/ϕs and
ϕao/ϕso) are used to extract the temperature components along the sensing fiber [
27,
28]. The
ϕao/ϕso (Stokes-one and anti-Stokes-one traces) is used to compensate the fiber attenuation of the whole fiber-line. If the sensing fiber or any device is replaced during the measurement stage, the system must need to be re-calibrated under the constant temperature environment. It makes the operation steps of Raman-based DTS more complicated. The existing Raman-based DTS has problems of poor resolution performance at low temperatures and complicated measurement steps.
2.3. The Novel DDAR Demodulation Principle for DDP Scheme
In order to avoid the additional optical interference noise and omit the whole-fiber calibration process, we propose a novel dynamic difference attenuation recognition (DDAR) method. We only need one section of the intensity ratio (
ϕa/ϕs, Stokes-two and anti-Stokes-two) to perform the temperature demodulation. The novel DDAR-based temperature demodulation method includes two parts, the attenuation recognizes stage and the measurement stage. These two steps can be performed simultaneously, as shown in the
Figure 4. In the attenuation recognition stage, the intensity ratio of the First-FUT and Second-FUT (the same type of fiber) are used to calculate the fiber attenuation. The intensity ratio of the first section (anti-Stokes over Stokes, First-FUT) is referred as follows:
The intensity ratio of the second section (Second-FUT) is referred as follows:
where the
Tc-f and
Tc-s display for the temperature of the First-FUT and Second-FUT. The
Lc-f and
Lc-s display for the distance of the First-FUT and Second-FUT. Then the fiber attenuation coefficient can be calculated according to the Equations (2) and (3).
During the measurement stage, the intensity ratio of the Raman along the sensing fiber and the reference fiber can be defined as
Then the temperature components along the fiber-line can be calculated by using the Equations (4) and (5), as shown in the Equation (6).
The proposed method uses the reference temperature signals generated by First-FUT and Second-FUT to demodulate the distributed attenuation information of the sensing fiber. Both the First-FUT and Second-FUT are all included in the measurement fiber-line. Then the attenuation information of the sensing fiber is introduced into Raman scattering signal to extract distributed temperature information. The advantage of this method is that it does not require the additional compensation components along the whole fiber-line, which can omit the whole-fiber calibration process. Moreover, the proposed method can be compatible with many types of optical fibers, such as MMF and single mode fibers (SMF). Due to the whole-fiber calibration stage is omitted, the system is not affected by the replacement of sensing fiber and device, which can be effectively used for a long time.
2.4. The Temperature Resolution Results for DDP Scheme Using the DDAR
In the Raman-based DTS, the fluctuation range of Raman demodulation signal (FRRDS) can be represented by the SNR. The experimental results proved that the FRRDS for the conventional demodulation method is 0.22 at 17.0 km as shown in the black dotted curve in
Figure 5a, while the SNR is 0.79 dB. The wavelet transform modulus maxima (WTMM) is an effective denoising method for Raman-based DTS. After the denoising of the WTMM, the FRRDS is 0.08 at 17.0 km, as shown in the red dotted curve in
Figure 5a, and its SNR is 3.75 dB. The DDAR demodulation method can avoid the additional Raman noise-optics interference. As shown by the blue dotted curve in
Figure 5a, the FRRDS can optimize to 0.031 at 17.00 km by using the DDAR method combined with the WTMM. Compared with the conventional demodulation method, the SNR for DDAR demodulation method is improved to 12.82 dB, as shown in
Figure 5b. Experimental results show that the SNR of the collected Raman demodulated signal can be effectively improved for DDP scheme.
To make a sensible performance comparison between the conventional and the proposed methods, another contrast experiment is conducted. In this experiment, we compare the temperature resolution (standard deviations of temperature) based on the conventional demodulation method and the proposed method. The FUTs are placed in a TCC which keeps the temperature at 27.0 °C. After running the Raman-based DTS system stably, the distributed temperature is measured using the conventional demodulation method based on Equation (1) and the proposed demodulation method based on Equation (6), respectively. The measured temperature trends and temperature resolution along the whole 17.0 km sensing fiber are shown in
Figure 6a,b. The temperature components are averaged 10 k times. The grey line and red line represent the temperature measured using the conventional demodulation method and WTMM-based demodulation method, respectively. The blue line shows the temperature components demodulated by combining the DDAR method and WTMM method. The temperature resolution is optimized from 0.61 °C to 0.05 °C at 1.0 km. The temperature resolution with 5.57 °C is optimized to 0.30 °C at 17.0 km. In addition, we place a FUT (20 m) with a position of 17.0 km into a high-precision constant temperature bath (Talent, BH8001, its temperature control range is 20.0–60.0 °C). Then the temperature of FUT is set to 60 °C in the experiment. The experimental results also show that the temperature fluctuation range of proposed method is better than conventional demodulation method and WTMM demodulation method, as shown in the
Figure 7.
Note that our proposed method provides an enhanced temperature resolution compared with conventional configuration. The most important thing is that the proposed method can improve the SNR without deteriorating the measurement time of the system, and omit the whole-fiber calibration process, which keeps the measurement time at 1.5 s under the premise of the obtained temperature resolution. Compared with the methods described in the introduction, the measurement time of the proposed method has an obvious advantage. Furthermore, the proposed DDAR method cannot solve the problem of the additional fiber losses that affects the temperature measurement accuracy. Therefore, in the practical applications, it is necessary to locate these positions where the temperature measurement error is caused by factors such as fiber bending and fusion before the distributed temperature measurement.
5. Discussion
In the traditional temperature demodulation process of Raman-based DTS system, the fiber attenuation in the measurement stage and the calibration stage is consistent at a room temperature condition. However, the fiber attenuation will change under an extreme temperature condition, which causes the fiber attenuation in the calibration stage and the measurement stage to be inconsistent. This phenomenon will affect the measurement error of the system. The theoretical analysis of measurement for extreme temperature is as follows:
During the calibration stage, the Raman intensity ratio along the sensing fiber can be defined as
During the measurement stage, the fiber attenuation will change slightly due to high temperature conditions. The Raman intensity ratio along the sensing fiber at the measurement stage can be defined as
The
is the fiber attenuation modulation factor related to temperature. The temperature expression function along the sensing fiber can be calculated by equations (17) and (18), as shown in Equation (19).
It can be seen from Equation (19) that the temperature information is not only modulated by the Raman signal, but also related to the fiber attenuation modulation factor. This phenomenon will affect the sensing performance of the system, including temperature resolution. Therefore, when applying the Raman-based DTS be applied to the extreme temperature measurement, the fiber attenuation should be considered in the demodulation process.
The DDAR method proposed in this paper is based on the SNR improvement to optimize the temperature resolution performance. This method cannot solve the problem of fiber attenuation changes caused by extreme temperature environments. In addition, the fiber attenuation does not show a linear relationship with the temperature change, it cannot apply the fiber attenuation modulation factor to this simulation model at the extreme temperature condition. Therefore, in order to avoid the above-mentioned problems, some special sensing fibers should be used as sensing fibers for temperature measurement. These special fibers can keep its fiber materials basically unchanged under extreme temperature conditions. Hence the boundary conditions of this simulation model are based on the constant attenuation of the fiber.
6. Conclusions
In this work, the distributed temperature measurement and theory analysis using the DDP and SDP schemes are experimental demonstrated. In the conventional Raman-based DTS, there is an optical interference noise due to the whole-fiber demodulation mechanism. Eventually it leads to a poor temperature resolution performance and complicates operation stage. Based on this, a novel DDAR demodulation principle is proposed. In the experiment, the temperature resolution with 0.05 °C (1.0 km) and 0.30 °C (17.0 km) are achieved in DDP scheme by using the DDAR principle. Meanwhile, the temperature resolution with 0.04 °C (1.0 km) and 0.18 °C (17.0 km) are obtained for SDP scheme under the DDAR principle. The SNR are improved to 12.82 dB (DDP) and 13.32 dB (SDP), respectively. Such a DDAR-based principle allows for the cancellation of additional optical interference noise, and the whole-fiber calibration process is also omitted. To the best of our knowledge, it means that the Raman-based DTS can ensure the best temperature resolution in such a short measurement time.
Moreover, the temperature resolution performances under a wide temperature measurement range are theoretically analyzed by using a numerical simulation model based on the Raman-intensity responsivity to the temperature. The results indicate that the temperature responsivity for DDP and SDP schemes present a parabolic and linear increasing trend, respectively, which causes that the temperature resolution performance of these two schemes presents the different trends as the measured temperature changes. Meanwhile, the DDAR method can also be applied to optimize the temperature resolution performance in a large temperature measurement range. The research in this work provides a promising solution to the performance improvement of temperature resolution for Raman-based DTS.